Watched Pride And Prejudice And Zombies
on free to air TV the other day ... I've got to tell you, despite (or perhaps because of) being set against the background of a zombie apocalypse, it has to be the most accessible and dare I say it, relevant treatment of a supposed* "great"* work of English literature I've seen.

* Not a great fan of the original TBH ... nor any other supposed "great" works of English

I have to agree, I’ve been hooked on it for years, one of my annual sporting fixtures that I just have to watch.
It’s a shame what’s happened to it over the last 15-20 years.
But France always looks amazing and the French people always come out to support it.

Let me preface this by saying I'm a Star Wars fan - I saw the original Star Wars (retroactively titling it "A New Hope" becuase the average American can't deal with context and can't therefore distinguish between the first film and the "universe" as a whole still annoys me) when I was 5 and was on the edge of my seat throughout, my previous cinematic experiences being Disney and Herbie films. By 1980 (The Empire Strikes Back) I was totally into the toys as well, right up until 1983 (Return of the Jedi), but that was "the end" and didn't bother much beyond that, the "last 17" figures held no interest for me (but naturally are rare/expensive now).

At the point many now adult fans burnt all their Star Wars merchandise (1999, The Phantom Menace) I kept the faith - I continued to suspend disbelief over George Lucas' sociopolitical naivety (Royalty that's voted in, slaves with time off and their own dwellings?), I didn't even hate Jar Jar Binks, though the whole "Midichlorians" did seem clumsy and pointless.

I bought and read every expanded universe novel, even persvering with the mammoth New Jedi Order series in the hope that at some point it had to get good ... Through Attack of the Clones (2002) I continued to defend the series, even if that particular installment did seem geared to mostly advertised new toys, and ending just when it should have got interesting (the actual Clones Wars, which we'd first heard about in ANH (yup, still hate the "new" title).

Even with Revenge of the Sith (2005) I justified Hayden Christensen's performance as a choice about how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader (rather than just being poor acting, as some claim).

Even through all the various incarnations of the Clone Wars (and all the toys/figures) and all the other reissued/new toy/figure lines, I kept the faith - and even through the retconning of the original trilogy, and the various DVD/Blu Ray reissues.

2015 though (The Force Awakens) was the straw that broke the dromedary though. Not content with ruining Star Trek (which I do have a lot off affection/respect for), I really felt that JJ Abrams had dropped his pants and dropped a massive dook all over not only my childhood, but my entire 37 year (37?!!) commitment to the franchise. I could have looked past the way Rey managed to defeat a trained Jedi (having had previous experience only with a stick, and having only one "move", heavily telegraphed). The flawed way in which the "monster" in Solo's "new" ship chomped all the expendable crew whole, but somehow decided to merely drag Finn around was harder to ignore, but if was the killing off of a major character in such an offhand way (a la Joss Whedon, see the end of the Buffy the Vampire run, and the end of Firefly/Serenity) was unforgivable to me, even if the actor did want out...

Note - I know this sort have thing has become routine in sci-fi/fantasy TV now - The 100 (which I watch the first couple of seasons of) and Game Of Throne (which I didn't) are pretty much relentless misery every episode.

At this point I'd had enough. I didn't hate it enough to burn/shred averything, but I did want rid of it. In the end I couldn't entirely let go, keeping DVDs of the original trilogy, a handful of books, and my loose set of original figures (thinking that of everything, the figures would appreciate or at least hold their value, while not taking up much space in the meantime).

Rogue One (2016/2017) on the other hand, may have turned the tide back for me - despite being deeply flawed, it at least had aspects of a more "grown up" movie, and was a previously untold portion of the story - but interesting and revelant.
Now those flaws ... putting previously seen characters in the background would have been interesting - but putting them in whole scences/cameos feels self indulgent ... onanistic even (though the series does have previous in this regard - Fett and Jabba in the retconned ANH). Furthermore, the metal dogs cookie cutter Jyn has to jump through near the end smack of false jeapordy, and the way Cassian rescues her is a total Deus Ex Machina.

The worst thing for me though is not that the tone (colour) of the film is mostly blue (lost of space, and the beach planet Scarif), it's that it seems that every small ship has four one-gallon jugs of gasoline wrapped in detcord installed in the cockpit, solely to provide a very hollywood, very, very orange explosion when hit.

Fast forward to yesterday when I watched The Last Jedi (yes, I know it came out ages ago at the cinema, but I didn't bother. The UK release date for Blu Ray was Monday, and as usual, Amazon sat on my order for and addtional, inexplicable few days before despatch). I'd managed to avoid most of the spoilers out there, so it was relatively fresh to me ... although I was aware of the panning some had given it, and the conspiracy theorists pointing out how "industry" reviews tended to be 5 star, and "fan" reviews 2 star ...

But, you know what, I actually quite enjoyed it, and I'd rate it as "least flawed Star Wars Film since the original trilogy). Watching it on a small screen doesn't rob it of a lot of it's impact, but for all of it's length, it doesn't really stall at any point, there being balance between pace and exposition. The "problems" I saw such as toy advertising, and much of it being a series of vignettes strung together are not new issues for the series, but I did feel the schmaltz was excessively heavy at times. The whole "Force Transmission" thing which seems to have excercised so many other amateur critics didn't bother me, it seemed internally consistent, and reasonably credible (given the context). The killing off of another key character this time seemed to come from being a plot point (you know they're going to come back as a Force Ghost) rather than outside necessity.

The roast porg though: thoroughly unrealistic. Had no-one involved in the production ever seen a plucked/prepped chicken?

Moving on, the next Star Wars movie (Solo) will be coming soon - trailers suggest it's going to be very much "A Fully Formed Smuggler Han Solo Character Goes On An Adventure And Meets Characters That Will Appear "Later" In The Series" (note: it's not foreshadowing if you already know what's going to happen) rather than the movie I'd hoped for.

Bear with me - in the "Han Solo Trilogy" series of novels, there's a moment where another character (Badure IIRC) is recounting how
Solo got the nickname "Slick" at the Imperial Academy after flying a training ship upside down to get the landing gear to crank out, lands it (barely), and shuts the ship down perfectly by the book. What I'd hoped the story would be (inevitably in 3-act formula, it's still Hollywood after all):

- Act one: a young, idealistic Solo joins the academy, a bit like "Ender's Game" but with added wackiness, including him flying upside down (but over the parade ground, blowing off the Commandant's (whose daughter Solo is boinking on the side) toupee while he shakes his fist and shouts "SOLO!!!!" (also see "Battleship", and most episodes of the Simpsons);

- Act two: becomes darker, with Solo seeing the evils of the Empire, culminating in rescuing the slave Chewbacca/killing his tormentors (this used to be cannon);

- Act three: some sort of mini adventure where the two avoid capture, show beginnings of development of their later characters, and (being a Star Wars movie) meet some characters (and craft) that will appear "later".

In some ways I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing what we will get - Woody Harrelson (who I still rate from Natural Born Killers, even if there is some "splash back" from the Hunger Games series) as Solo's mentor.